teaching and preaching
posted by Sybil Vane
I am slow on the uptake with this, and eric at EoTAW has already covered it, but reader Leslie emailed last week to draw our attention to the new rules at the U of Illinois prohibiting faculty from wearing political buttons, expressing political positions, preparing for political events while on campus and so on. Bumper stickers on one's car even.
Chronicle article here.
Not to put too fine a point on it, this is bullshit. Yes, I understand that professors have what amounts to a bully pulpit, yes, I understand there is a power imbalance between students and teacher. No, teachers should not be coercive. But give me some credit already.
One, Horowitz is wrong, as the vast majority of educators tend to agree. Campuses are not, in fact, gulags of left-wing indoctrinization. Policies like the U of I's presume that the default condition of college instructors to to inject political activism into their classrooms (and I find it perversely fitting that I have reason to mention Horowitz the week one of his most dangerous targets returns to blogging).
Two, while campuses are by no means liberal training camps, they also aren't hermetic bubbles. Students have no reason to expect that their experiences on campus will not reflect all the diversity and ranges of perspective that they might encounter in the Real World. And while I understand that students ought not feel pressured to espousing any particular view, they also ought not expect to never confront ideology. Just because it isn't all telegraphed on bumper stickers doesn't mean cultural and political ideologies don't inform nearly everything that goes on around them. In class discussion this semester, I have learned that 70% of my freshmen students think they have a civil right not to be offended. Muse on that for a bit; it's goddamned depressing. Policies like this one don't to anything to disabuse them of this kind of insularity.
Three, I AM A PERSON! I am NOT a floating disembodied brain. To my mind, this policy is an extension of the institutional pressure on academics to have no personal lives, to be brains on sticks, absorbed at all times in the life of the mind. I am a three dimensional woman. I do not just sit around reading poetry. I like sports (suck it, B) and ice cream and have political opinions. My students and my colleagues do not need me to be a teaching robot in order to take me seriously. I have been told on several occasions that I shouldn't share personal information with students. That especially as a woman if I intend to be taken seriously, I should not mention my family or hobbies or anything. I should be a teaching zombie. I refuse. The Obama bumper sticker on my car and the button on my bag may tell students something about me, sure. But why shouldn't they know something about me? It's up to me to decide whether that has any effect on my authority or efficacy.
Finally, do give me some credit, really. Not every opinion I hold becomes a lens through which I teach. I know the difference between teaching and preaching.
Chronicle article here.
Not to put too fine a point on it, this is bullshit. Yes, I understand that professors have what amounts to a bully pulpit, yes, I understand there is a power imbalance between students and teacher. No, teachers should not be coercive. But give me some credit already.
One, Horowitz is wrong, as the vast majority of educators tend to agree. Campuses are not, in fact, gulags of left-wing indoctrinization. Policies like the U of I's presume that the default condition of college instructors to to inject political activism into their classrooms (and I find it perversely fitting that I have reason to mention Horowitz the week one of his most dangerous targets returns to blogging).
Two, while campuses are by no means liberal training camps, they also aren't hermetic bubbles. Students have no reason to expect that their experiences on campus will not reflect all the diversity and ranges of perspective that they might encounter in the Real World. And while I understand that students ought not feel pressured to espousing any particular view, they also ought not expect to never confront ideology. Just because it isn't all telegraphed on bumper stickers doesn't mean cultural and political ideologies don't inform nearly everything that goes on around them. In class discussion this semester, I have learned that 70% of my freshmen students think they have a civil right not to be offended. Muse on that for a bit; it's goddamned depressing. Policies like this one don't to anything to disabuse them of this kind of insularity.
Three, I AM A PERSON! I am NOT a floating disembodied brain. To my mind, this policy is an extension of the institutional pressure on academics to have no personal lives, to be brains on sticks, absorbed at all times in the life of the mind. I am a three dimensional woman. I do not just sit around reading poetry. I like sports (suck it, B) and ice cream and have political opinions. My students and my colleagues do not need me to be a teaching robot in order to take me seriously. I have been told on several occasions that I shouldn't share personal information with students. That especially as a woman if I intend to be taken seriously, I should not mention my family or hobbies or anything. I should be a teaching zombie. I refuse. The Obama bumper sticker on my car and the button on my bag may tell students something about me, sure. But why shouldn't they know something about me? It's up to me to decide whether that has any effect on my authority or efficacy.
Finally, do give me some credit, really. Not every opinion I hold becomes a lens through which I teach. I know the difference between teaching and preaching.
Posted at 4:31 AM
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